The Catcher in the Rye

I am reading Catcher in the Rye, the classic novel about a misunderstood teen. It is told in first person by Holden Caulfield. He gives off the impression that he doesn’t care about anything or anyone. In reality, this is just a mask. He has some of the worst luck ever and the only way he knows how to deal with it is to pretend it doesn’t matter to him. In general, he has nothing to look forward to in life. He is failing out of a prestigious prep school and is only the manager of the fencing team, in which he loses all of their gear and infuriates any friends he had on the team. Friends really are not something he has. He tries so hard to give off a cool appearance that he never makes any lasting friendships. In his descriptions of his roommate and neighbor, you can see just how much he resists being friendly with people. He spends more time explaining their filthy grooming habits than explaining real reasons as to why he doesn’t like them. Holden describes Ackley as a pimply loser and his roommate, Stradlater, as a “secret slob”. The teenager only respects people of the opposite sex, like his crush Jane and his sister Phoebe. This shows how much Holden values innocence, a main theme in this book. He doesn’t like the boys from Pencey Prep because they are concerned with mostly just sex and girls. The women mentioned by him are his idea of purity. He likes Jane for simple things like holding hands and playing golf with him. Phoebe hasn’t been corrupted by teenage life yet. The people that bring him back to his childhood and who in his mind will never change or grow up are the people who he values the most.